Dan Aykroyd 'elated' over mass Crystal Head vodka theft?

Dan Aykroyd, the once and future ghost buster, and noted paranormal enthusiast, was recently the victim of a mass theft of his Crystal Head Vodka from a California warehouse, TMZ reports. More than 21,000 bottles of the premium spirit, which costs well into the several hundred thousand dollar range, were swiped last week, causing both the Los Angeles Police Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to join the case.

But the real surprise here?  Aykroyd isn't all that upset, and is actually taking the theft incredibly well.

According to a statement, Aykroyd said he is "distressed and elated" over the heist.

"My partners and I are sorry to lose this much vodka to theft and do not condone criminal activity in any fashion, but we are happy that some consumers will be afforded the opportunity of tasting it at significantly lower than retail price."

He then adds, "CHV can be purchased legally at bars, restaurants, and retail stores throughout North America."

Not that we're condoning the theft either, but after sampling the vodka for an interview with Dan, we definitely understand the allure of the vodka's mystical properties.

Bill Murray dodges, stalls (again) on 'Ghost Busters 3'

Instead of showing hesitation or trying to back out, what if Bill Murray - a showbiz savvy actor who fired his agent, began accepting job offers only through a 1-800 number and successfully re-created his own image into a Renaissance actor - was instead bobbing and weaving about his involvement with Ghost Busters 3 (which is supposed to begin production this spring) to actually create enough hype and anticipation for the movie and his third appearance as Peter Venkman? 

This bizarre theory may be the only thing a rational mind can come up with to describe the production's back-and-forth, on-again/off-again speculation. As recently as Feb. 3, Screen Rant's Anthony Ocasio reported that the script by Year One writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky - which has been rewritten and agreed upon by Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, director Ivan Reitman and Sony Pictures - had not yet been read by Murray, but that that was OK and just part of the actor's routine.  Then, this Monday, while promoting No Strings Attached, Reitman said Murray "has seen Ghostbusters script."

Except that may not be completely true. In an hourlong interview, Stern gets Murray to open up and admit that "I'm the problem" with Ghostbusters 3.

"Before I was an asset, [but] now I’m a problem. There’s a script somewhere [on my desk], but I haven’t read it yet."

He also admits that, agreeing with Stern's words, the sequel is a "bulls---t idea":

I only made one sequel and it was Ghostbusters 2 and it didn’t end up the way it was presented. About five years after we did the first one, the clever agents got us all together in a room and… we really are funny together, I mean they are funny people – Harold [Ramis] and Danny [Aykroyd] and myself, with Ivan [Reitman] and maybe one or two other people. We were just blindingly funny for about an hour or so and the agents, there was just foam coming off of them. They had this pitch and Danny and Harold had concocted some story ideas… and it was a story, it was good story. I think I had even read one or two [scripts forGhostbusters 2] that Danny had rolled out beforehand, but this one was a good one. I said, 'Ok, we can do that one.' It was just kind of fun to have all of us together… I mean [Rick] Moranis, Annie [Potts] – these people are just sterling people to begin with.

Ocasio did some follow-up reporting on Murray's appearance on The Howard Stern Show where the actor admitted he had received the script, but no reading had been done.

However, Murray does admit he will read the script but hasn't thought much about it, and lends more credence to the idea the new movie is at least partially about passing the mantle to younger 'busters.:

I gotta get to it – I feel bad. I got a message and I think people – I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings – it’s not the foremost thing in my mind, so I don’t think about it.
You know, the studio gets excited every 10 years or so. What they’d really like to do is recreate the franchise. I remember when the new Ghostbusters was going to be Chris Rock, Chris Farley and Chris Crane… Kris Kringle… someone [laughs] – they had it together.

So the end assumption I think we can all safely make?  This movie is happening, but I just happen to think Bill Murray is building buzz in his very Bill Murray way.

Either that, or all this round-and-round is some effed-up viral marketing for a Groundhog Day sequel.

Bill Murray on 'Ghost Busters 3' on-again, off-again news

In its recent August "Comedy Issue," GQ lands an interview with Bill Murray to discuss his approach to comedy, his place in the movie business and his new indie film, Get Low. But no good features writer can interview Murray without getting the latest news on the ever-evolving Ghost Busters 3 story. Thankfully, Dan Fierman is a good writer and gets some nice quotes out of Murray in a piece accompanied by a Daniel Clowes (of the non-paranormal, but excellent, Ghost World) illustration.

To recap on the GB3 drama, Dan Aykroyd told me the movie was on. Harold Ramis said the same thing, and that the film would be out in Dec. 2012. However, it was Murray who said it was a no-go (to David Letterman), then said, "maybe."

So where does the third movie stand now?

Is the third Ghostbusters movie happening? What's the story with that?

It's all a bunch of crock. It's a crock. There was a story—and I gotta be careful here, I don't want to hurt someone's feelings. When I hurt someone's feelings, I really want to hurt them. [laughs] Harold Ramis said, Oh, I've got these guys, they write on The Office, and they're really funny. They're going to write the next Ghostbusters. And they had just written this movie that he had directed.

Year One.

Year One. Well, I never went to see Year One, but people who did, including other Ghostbusters, said it was one of the worst things they had ever seen in their lives. So that dream just vaporized. That was gone. But it's the studio that really wants this thing. It's a franchise. It's a franchise, and they made a whole lot of money on Ghostbusters.

Oh, sure, I remember. The soundtrack. The lunchboxes. The action figures.

Right. And it's still one of the biggest movies of all time. And ever since that story broke, everywhere I go people are like, "So are you gonna make that movie?" I was down in Austin at South by Southwest, and you go at it hard down there—fun but, man, you need to sleep for days afterwards. Anyhow, I got into it one night with a bunch of younger people who were like, Oh, I love Peter Venkman! I grew up with Peter Venkman! We got to talking, and the more we talked about it, the more I thought, Oh Christ, I should just do this thing.

A generation awaits, for sure. You weren't even supposed to play that role, right?

Yeah. Originally it was Belushi. Like a lot of my movies. [beat] God, John died, what was it, twenty-five years ago?

It was '82, right?

Yeah, I think it was '82. I dunno. That part of life is getting fuzzy.

I read that you wanted to play a ghost in the movie. That's kind of brilliant.

Well, I hadn't wanted to do the movie. They kept asking, and I kept saying no. So once upon a time I said, just joking: "If you kill me off in the first reel, then fine, I'll do it." And then supposedly they came up with an idea where they kill me off and I was a ghost in the movie. Kinda clever, really.

But has the Zombieland cameo stolen that gag?

[genuinely confused] But that was a zombie. Not a ghost.

Later on in the interview, Murray tells Fierman he remains friends with Aykroyd, and that it was the Ghost Busters creator who got him studio backing for his first dramatic film, The Razor's Edge.

Everyone says Danny is the nicest guy on the planet.

Danny is…Canadian. [laughs] No, he's the only one I see much of. He's great. And I owe him. Back when I wanted to make The Razor's Edge, he sent me the first twenty-nine pages of Ghostbusters to read. And you know, they were great, even better than what we filmed, so I said, "Okay, okay, gotta do it." And Danny said, [pitch-perfect, like crazily eerily perfect Aykroyd impression] "Uummm, okay. Where should we, uh, er, do it?" And I said, "Well, I'm trying to get this movie made over at Columbia [Pictures]." And he said, "All right, well, you tell 'em that they do your movie there and they'll have the GBs." We had a caterer for Razor's Edge in forty-five minutes. Hell of a guy.

Call me delusional, but I'm one of those kids who "grew up with Peter Venkman," and I read Murray's comments about Ghost Busters 3 in a positive light.  He maintains good relationships with most of his old costars, and he seems up for doing it for a laugh. If anything, Murray just sounds like he has no faith that everyone will get their act together enough to do it, so let's hope he's wrong.

Dan Aykroyd, from ghost buster to spirit maker

Dan Aykroyd looks like a cop in a crowd of Ghost Busters, Blues Brothers and Blues sisters. The shades are reminiscent of the erstwhile Elwood, but the black button-up shirt with insignia above the breast pocket and black University of Maryland Police ball cap reminds one of a police officer, secret service or DEA agent arriving to survey a scene. It makes it somewhat fitting, then, when the celebrity’s first actions at the Joe Canal’s Discount Liquor Outlet in Iselin, NJ, in late March include shuffling off overzealous press photographers in an officious “show’s over” manner and getting a snaking line of bedecked fans moving for an afternoon  of photos, autographs, meet-and-greets - and skull signings.

Despite Aykroyd’s physical similarities to a police officer – a comparison he’d likely appreciate considering his longstanding fascination and relationship with law enforcement agencies in the United States and his native Canada – the skulls he’s signing aren’t human bones that hold forensic clues, but are instead connected to legend, made of glass and contain quadruple-distilled, triple-filtered, additive-free Crystal Head Vodka.

But aside from being just another premium vodka that retails for about $50 and happens to come in a wicked cool glass bottle, CHV - as Dan Aykroyd tells it in between each Sharpie marker signature applied to fans’ alcoholic acquisition - is inspired by the crystal skull myth popularized in the last “Indiana Jones” flick and is the imbibable incarnation of his work as an entertainer and lifelong association with the paranormal and mysticism.

“All my life I’ve been giving people recordings, radio shows, television broadcasts, sketch comedy, film,” he says. “Now I’m actually making something that I can put in their mouths - a tangible, tactile experience.”

Launched in Southern California in 2008 (with a viral video some were convinced was an elaborate joke) before rolled out to other regions throughout 2009, the CHV “experience” is the latest endeavor of a man who has created, written and performed as several iconic comedic characters from the past 35 years. Since graduating from Chicago’s Second City improv comedy troupe and joining Saturday Night Live as an original repertory member in 1975, the lines Dan Aykroyd has penned or spoken could alone fill a sizable volume of pop-culture quotable quotes – and no true fan of ’80s movies could call his DVD collection complete without at least owning The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and Ghost Busters. And under the auspices of his cool man-in-black alias Elwood Blues, Aykroyd created the House of Blues restaurant and concert hall chain, and educated newcomers to the music genre through his House of Blues Radio Hour.
 
But Aykroyd is also well known as a Spiritualist and paranormal pop culture icon who holds the belief that spirits and ghosts communicate with the living - a family tradition covered in his father Peter’s book, A History of Ghosts, for which he wrote the forward – and has extensive knowledge on UFOs. His openness on such paranormal topics makes it all the more engaging when he describes the pure Newfoundland deep aquifer vodka filtered through Herkimer Diamonds, polished crystals that are supposed to emit positive energy.

The positive energy is a recurring theme with the crystal skulls legend, which involves 13 ancient, quartz rock human skull carvings that supposedly possess mystical properties that, if brought together, will usher in a new era, or cause the end of the world – possibly all happening on Dec. 21, 2012, which of course marks the grand finale of the Mayan calendar. The British Museum and Smithsonian, both of which possess a skull, determined the objects aren’t as old as the tales suggests, but Aykroyd isn’t as easily convinced; he claims other cultures believed the heads were “from another star, a gift from above.”

“There are some who are skeptics and say that they’re all fakes. That’s what the Smithsonian said,” says Aykroyd. “But I can’t quite believe that because the Navajo spoke of them, the Aztec spoke of them, the Maya spoke of them. And they spoke of them as a very integral part of the tribe’s responsibility.”